


Don't Bring Me Down

by DragonGirl



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, M/M, Modern Exandria, Molly and Caleb both grade for the same class and hijinks ensue, Multi, The rest of the Nein make various appearances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-11
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-01-11 09:13:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 17,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18427529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DragonGirl/pseuds/DragonGirl
Summary: All Caleb wants is to make it to the end of the semester with as little fuss as possible. But when his grading partner constantly fails to get his grading done on time, it makes it difficult to slide under the professor’s radar. So, for the sake of his sanity, Caleb takes it upon himself to make sure the work gets done, even if he has to literally sit on Mollymauk to make him do it.Mollymauk Tealeaf is a major pain in the ass. He’s loud and outgoing and fearless, everything Caleb’s not. However, he may be exactly the person needed to break Caleb out of his shell.





	1. Did I Say That Out Loud?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey all so a few months ago my sister was complaining about her grading partner and this idea smacked me in the face and wouldn't leave me alone. Right now I'm aiming to update on either Wednesdays or Thursdays but it really depends on how much free time my beta reader has to edit. 
> 
> Also while writing this I learned that the names for Exandria's days of the week are weird as hell.

_Mr Widogast and Mr Tealeaf,_

_I am writing to inquire about the status of the grading for the latest assignment, seeing as it is Folsen 1 and I have yet to receive anything. Please send me the graded assignments as soon as possible so I can give the students their feedback before the exam next week._

_\- Professor de Rolo_

Caleb groaned, slamming his head down against his desk as he finished reading the email. “I would send you the finished assignments, Professor de Rolo, if Mollymauk would ever finish his _fucking_ grading in a timely manner,” he muttered angrily into the hard surface.

“I don’t see why you can’t just send him what you’ve got, seeing as you’ve finished your portion of the work.” Caleb jumped slightly at the sound of his roommate’s voice. He had forgotten that she was in the room. 

Sighing heavily, Caleb turned in his chair to face his roommate, who was currently lounging on her bed. “Because Nott, at the beginning of the semester Professor de Rolo explicitly said he wanted all the graded assignments sent to him at once. Besides, we split the assignments by problems, so he can’t do anything with half-graded assignments.”

“Then how about you just tell him that you’re waiting for Mollymauk’s stuff?” Nott began, grabbing a nearby bag of chips and shoving a handful into her mouth. “That way you won’t have to share the blame,” she continued around a mouthful of chips. Caleb grimaced as he watched the half-chewed bits of chips fly from her mouth. No matter how many times he had talked to her about not talking with her mouth full, she never listened. He had long since given up on trying.

“ _Nein_ , I can not do that,” he replied, shaking his head vehemently.

“Why not?”

“Because.” 

Thankfully Nott took the hint. She sat on her bed, not so silently crunching away for a few moments before she next spoke. “It’s starting to get dark, do you want to get some dinner?”

“Really?” Caleb asked, looking at her incredulously. “You have been going to town on that bag of chips and you’re still hungry?” Nott shrugged. Caleb stared at her for a minute, blinking a couple times before finally nodding. “ _Ja_ , dinner sounds good.” Nott smiled, a wide uneven grin that showed just enough of her pointed teeth to be unsettling to anyone besides Caleb. She launched herself off her bed, tossing aside the half-eaten bag of chips and sending a good portion of the bag’s contents flying. Caleb winced. Nott was going to have crumbs in her bed for weeks.

~~~

The two made it across campus to the dining hall rather quickly. While winter hadn’t set in yet, it was still late enough in the year that the chill in the air hurried them along. The dining hall was decently crowded and it took the duo much longer to get their food than Caleb would have liked.

By the time the two of them had managed to find an empty table towards the back of the hall, Caleb was ready to return to the peaceful quiet of his room. Thankfully it was quieter here than towards the front of the hall, but the low hum of people conversing was still present. Caleb and Nott ate in relative silence for several minutes as he pondered over his current predicament.

“Over here! I found an empty table you guys!” Caleb jumped at the sudden, loud voice. He turned his head to see a blue tiefling girl excitedly jumping up and down next to the table to his left. He casually followed the girl’s line of sight and froze. He vaguely recognized the shorter girl in the group approaching, dressed casually in loose blue pants and a blue sleeveless shirt with her hair up in a messy topknot. She was in one of his gen-ed classes. Caleb was pretty sure her name was Beau. Behind her was a tall half-orc he did not recognize along with probably the most intimidating looking woman he had ever seen. She was only an inch or so taller than the half-orc but she was much bulkier, making her seem larger than she truly was. 

At the back of the group, was the last person Caleb wanted to see right now. It was hard to miss the flurry of color that was Mollymauk Tealeaf. But if you somehow managed it, the tinkling of the various pieces of jewelry that adorned his ears and horns did a great job of signaling his approach. Caleb quickly pulled up the collar of his well-worn coat and sunk down slightly in his chair, determinedly staring at his half-finished meal.

Nott gave him an inquisitive look as she continued to shovel food into her mouth. “What’s wrong?” she asked, her tone much too loud given how close the group was now. Caleb just shook his head. Nott’s attention was pulled away from him momentarily as Mollymauk and his friends finally reached their table. Her eyes widened comically when she saw who was sitting down and she ducked her head back down. 

Ten minutes later, Caleb had yet to move. Truthfully, he was starting to feel a little stiff after holding the same position for so long, but moving would surely draw attention to himself and that was the last thing he wanted. 

“Really, if you didn’t want dicks drawn all over your notes, then you shouldn’t have left your notebook just lying around where anyone could tamper with it,” the blue tiefling girl was loudly protesting.

“Jester. I left my notebook on _my own damn desk_ ,” Beau replied angrily. She opened her mouth, presumably to further berate Jester.

“All right, all right, I regret asking,” the half-orc interrupted with a slow drawl, holding up his hands to placate her. Beau sat back in her chair and crossed her arms but didn’t argue further. After a moment, he turned to his right to look at Mollymauk, who was seated next to him. “So, Molly, what did you get up to today?”

“Oh you know, not much,” Mollymauk replied, leaning back in his chair and crossing one leg over the other. “I skipped class this morning and decided to join the circus.”

“Ooh! That would be so fun!” Jester cut in. “What would you do in the circus? Maybe you could breathe fire or something really cool like that! What do you think Fjord?” she asked the half-orc.

“Molly…” Fjord warned.

“All right, you got me.” Molly held his hands up in mock surrender. 

“He spent his entire afternoon napping in his room,” the very tall, previously silent woman sitting to Mollymauk’s right cut in.

“Yasha!” Molly cried out, holding a hand up to his chest. “I told you that in the strictest of confidences.” Caleb tightened his grip on the collar of his coat as the group dissolved into laughter. So that was what he had been doing. 

“So,” Jester began after the laughter had died down some. “I just received another care package from my mom this afternoon… Who’s up for an evening of pampering?”

“Sounds good to me,” Beau replied, shrugging her shoulders. “It’s been a rough week.”

“Eh what the hell, why not?” Molly said gleefully. “It’s not like I have anything to do tonight.”

At this point Caleb swore he saw red. Bullshit. He had to have seen the email by now, and instead of getting his work done like a responsible person, he was willfully ignoring it. 

“Uhh… Caleb?” Caleb was pulled from his thoughts by the sound of Nott’s voice. He looked up to meet her wide yellow eyes. Her eyes flicked to the side and Caleb followed her gaze to see Molly and his entire group of friends gaping at him.

“Is there a problem, Mr. Caleb?” Molly asked him, raising one perfectly sculpted eyebrow. 

_Sheiße._

Had he said something?

Caleb stared blankly at Mollymauk, trying to come up with some sort of response. As the seconds ticked by, Molly’s expression grew more and more amused. Wait a minute. Was he… was he enjoying this?

Something in Caleb snapped at that realization. “ _Ja_ , actually,” he ground out, standing up and slamming his hands down on the table. “And you know exactly what it is, _arschloch!_ ”

The smirk immediately slid off of Molly’s face. “No…” He said slowly. “No I don’t.”

“Do you really expect me to believe that you haven’t seen the email?!” Caleb pointed a finger angrily in Molly’s face. He was practically yelling at this point, but he was too angry to care at the moment. “Professor de Rolo sent it this morning!”

“Shit!” Molly swore, red eyes growing comically wide. “Is it Folsen?!”

Caleb stopped short. “Uhh… What?” he replied eloquently, finger still raised in the air.

“Sorry Jester,” Molly said as he stood and threw on his coat in one fluid motion. He bent over to kiss the top of her head. “I’m gonna need a rain check!” 

“Molly, where are you…” Jester asked the empty space next to her. Mollymauk had left in a flurry of colors before she could finish her sentence. “You forgot your food!” She called after him.

Caleb dumbly watched Molly weave his way through the cafeteria, before he came to the sudden realization that the entire building was much quieter than it had been a few minutes ago. _Shitshitshitshit_. Caleb tried to will down the rising urge to vomit as a survey of the room confirmed that the entire cafeteria was indeed staring at him. And so, when suddenly faced with the realization that he now had the attention of a large portion of the student body, Caleb did the only reasonable thing his panicking brain could think of. 

He ran.

~~~

By the time Nott returned from the cafeteria half an hour later, Caleb had already cycled through multiple plans to drop out of school and move to another continent. That way, he wouldn’t have to deal with the fact that he had just made a complete fool of himself in front of the entire student body. 

“Mrrrow?” Caleb blinked rapidly for a moment before looking at the source of the noise, the cat currently curled up on his chest. He hadn’t even realized that his breathing had begun to pick up again. Caleb closed his eyes and took a deep breath. 

“Everything is going to be fine,” he reasoned out loud, running a hand over Frumpkin’s soft fur. “By this time tomorrow, everyone will have forgotten all about this. No one ever remembers this sort of thing anyway.” Right around the time he had finally gotten his breathing back under control, there was a knock on his door, followed by the jangle of keys. 

“Caleb?” Nott asked quietly as she poked her head into their room. Caleb sat up as Nott fully entered the room, ignoring Frumpkin’s protests at having to move. She held out a box. “You ran off before you could finish your dinner so I brought it back for you,” she explained sheepishly. 

“ _Danke,_ ” Caleb whispered as he took it from her. There was no way he was going to be able to eat any time soon, so he climbed out of bed to go put it in the small refrigerator they had set up in the corner of the room. He had almost reached it when the door that Nott had left ajar suddenly flew open and slammed into the wall. Caleb fumbled with the box for a moment before it finally slipped from his hands and fell to the ground with a splat. So much for eating it later…

“Dude what the hell?” a furious voice spat out. Caleb turned to face the person who had just unceremoniously kicked open their door. He was greeted by the sight of Beau glaring at him from the doorway, arms crossed and feet set in a wide stance. When Caleb failed to reply, she stalked across the room to get up into Caleb’s face. “Listen here, you piece of shit,” she said, jabbing him hard in the chest with her pointer finger. “You had no right to talk to Molly that way. Do you have any idea what he’s been through lately? Dude has spent the last week locked up in his room studying his ass off from some big important midterm for a class he’s been struggling not to fail all semester. So yeah, he’s been a little too busy to do whatever the hell you were yelling at him about.” 

“But,” Caleb stuttered out, trying to process all the information Beau had just thrown at him. “If he was so busy, why didn’t he just say something to either myself or Professor de Rolo?”

“Because!” Beau cried, throwing up her hands. “That’s just the kind of person Molly is! He thinks he can handle everything, even though he has way too much on his plate and his time management skills suck.”

“Oh…” Caleb buried his face into his hands as the reality of the situation sunk in. “I am such an _arschloch_ ,” he groaned. 

“Yeah. Yeah you are.” Beau crossed her arms once more.

“How am I ever going to fix this?”

“If I may offer a suggestion,” a low, gravelly voice came from the door. Caleb’s head snapped up as Beau whipped around to face the tall firbolg standing in the doorway. 

Caleb’s neighbor Caduceus Clay looked as calm as ever, standing there in a green sweater with loose sleeves and holding a still steaming cup of tea in his hands. “So sorry to interrupt,” he said, brushing a stray lock of pink hair out of his face. “It’s just, the walls are very thin and you’re being very loud.”

“I’m sorry,” Caleb said softly, refusing to make eye contact. “We will attempt to be quieter.”

“Thank you,” Caduceus replied. He turned to walk back to his room before stopping and turning his head back to look at Caleb. “If you would like my advice,” he said slowly, “you should probably start by apologizing to him. It sounds like he could use some help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Thursday


	2. Apologies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took so long to get this chapter up, my beta reader has been unexpectedly busy these last couple weeks and I'm pretty much at the mercy of her schedule.

“Come on Caleb, you can do this. Just knock on the door and apologize.” Caleb muttered to himself under his breath as he paced the unfamiliar hallway the following afternoon. 

That was a lie. If the last hour was any indicator, he most definitely could not do this. He had already received some strange looks from a short elven woman with an undercut who entered a room further down the hall half an hour ago. He was lucky that the majority of people we still in class, otherwise he would have been on the receiving end of many such looks. In fact, Caleb wouldn’t even be here if it weren’t for Beau’s insistence that Mollymauk would be in his room at this time. 

“Excuse me,” Caleb was torn from his thoughts by a slow drawl behind him. He whirled around to find one of Molly’s friends, the tall half-orc named Fjord, approaching from down the hall. “Can I… help you?” he asked as reached the door Caleb had been pacing in front of and pulled his keys out of his pocket. 

“Oh uh, _nein_ , I’m good.” Caleb waved Fjord off.

“Well ok then.” Fjord looked unconvinced, but he opened the door with a shrug.

“Ah, good afternoon Fjord.” Caleb froze when he heard Molly’s voice call out from within the room. “Can you be a dear and let Caleb know he doesn’t have to wait outside all afternoon. He can come in if he’d like.” 

Fjord poked his head out the door. “Hey, Molly wanted me to tell you-”

“ _Ja, ja_ I heard him,” Caleb ground out. _Arschloch_. He angrily shoved past Fjord into the room, fully prepared to give Molly the what-for for letting him stew in his own anxiety, only to have every last thought in his head immediately fizzle out and die.

The smug-looking tiefling was currently lounging on his bed, wearing only a very fitted pair of multi-colored leggings that somehow didn’t clash horribly with his purple skin. His laptop was precariously perched on his stomach, propped up against one leg he had crossed over the other. Before he could stop himself, Caleb’s eyes wandered over the tattoos covering Molly’s exposed torso. Huh. Turns out the peacock feathers running up his neck were actually attached to a peacock-

Molly cleared his throat. “You know, my eyes are up here,” he joked. Caleb flushed a deep red, stuttering out what he hoped could be understood as an apology. “Anyway,” Molly continued, suddenly serious. “I finished my portion of the grading last night, if that’s what you came to ask about. And I already sent it to you.”

“Oh, um _ja_ , I received it. That is not why I am here.”

“Oh?” Molly sat up fully and placed the laptop off to the side. “Then why are you here?”

“Well um,” Caleb fiddled with the collar of his coat as he continued. “It has been brought to my attention that my understanding of your situation was, um, incorrect.” 

Molly raised an eyebrow. “Beau showed up at your place last night and threatened you, didn’t she?”

“Oh _ja_ , absolutely,” Caleb nodded emphatically. “However. She had some very good points. I should have spoken to you before yelling at you in public. And for that I am sorry.” 

Molly seemed at a loss for words for a moment. “I… Thank you Caleb. However you really don’t need to apologize.”

“No, no I do,” Caleb insisted.

Molly sighed. “Fine, then apology accepted.”

“Good, good,” Caleb nodded, clapping his hands and awkwardly rubbing them together as he looked around the room. “I should probably get going then.” Caleb walked back to the door but stopped right before he could cross the threshold into the hallway. He turned back around. “Beauregard mentioned that you were having trouble getting your work done because your, as she said, ‘time management skills suck.’” 

“Excuse me!” Molly protested loudly. “My time management skills are excellent thank you very much!”

Caleb ignored this and continued. “I just thought, what if we met up some time every week to do our grading together? That way you would have some time explicitly set aside to actually get it done on time?”

“That’s… actually a very good idea,” Molly replied after giving it a moment’s thought. 

“ _Ja_ , I have been known to have those occasionally,” Caleb deadpanned. 

“Why Caleb, was that a joke?” Molly stared at him in disbelief for a moment before his face split into a wide grin. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard you make a joke before.”

Caleb smiled softly. “I have also been known to make those occasionally.” Molly looked Caleb over from head to toe, with an intensity in his expression that made Caleb want to hide behind the lapels of his coat. He settled for clearing his throat instead. “S-so when would you like to meet?”

Molly tilted his head back up to meet Caleb’s eyes once more. “Well,” he replied. “As I’m sure Beau mentioned, my schedule is pretty full during the week. But my Da'leysen1 afternoons are pretty free, if that works for you?”

“ _Ja_.” Caleb nodded. “I am also quite free then. Shall we meet in the library, say around one?”

“It’s a date.” Molly smiled widely, showing off his fangs. Caleb gulped.

What had he just gotten himself into?

~~~

He didn’t have to wait long to find out. The next afternoon Caleb found himself set up at a corner table in the library, grading materials spread out across the surface. He spared a quick glance at his watch, more out of habit than of any real need to: one-thirty and still no sign of Mollymauk. Had he changed his mind? Caleb had chosen a table at the edge of the library to minimize distractions, but what if Molly hadn’t been able to find him and had just given up and left? He was probably still in his room, laughing at the fact that Caleb was sitting here waiting for him like an idiot. This was a stupid idea. He should have never-

“Sorry, sorry I know I’m late.” Caleb visibly flinched as Molly slipped into the chair across from him. “I slept through my alarm.”

Caleb shot him a dubious look. “It is one-thirty in the afternoon.” 

“What can I say?” Molly smirked, lounging back in the chair and shooting Caleb a wink. “I had a wild night.” Molly’s grin grew even larger as the blush bloomed across Caleb’s face. 

Caleb coughed lightly, ducking his head down to anxiously shuffle through a stack of papers. “A-Anyway, we usually split the problems down the middle, so I have started on the first half. We should get back to work.”

“Right.” Molly seemed to visibly deflate for a second but he quickly recovered and pulled out his things. The two worked in companionable silence for a while.

A while being exactly ten minutes.

“Sooo… you come here often?” 

Caleb looked up from his work to shoot a confused look in Molly’s direction. The tiefling was leaning forward slightly with his face propped up in his left hand and looking at Caleb through his lashes. “What are you doing?” Caleb asked.

“It’s called making conversation. Surely you’ve heard of it.”

Caleb set his pencil down with a sigh. “I meant why aren’t you focusing on your work, since that is the reason we are here.”

Molly leaned back in his chair, a pout forming on his face. “Don’t you ever have fun?” Molly asked, looking Caleb up and down.

“ _Ja_ ,” Caleb huffed angrily as he picked up his pencil again. “Just not when I have shit to do.”

A mischievous smirk grew on Molly’s face. “Oh really?”

“Just get back to work.”

“Fine, fine.” Molly held his hands up but that grin didn’t leave his face.

~~~

A few hours later, Caleb entered his room, made a beeline for his bed, and fell face first onto it with a groan. He lifted his head enough to spare a glance at an unimpressed-looking Frumpkin. 

“That bad, huh?”

“ _Sheiße!_ ” Caleb cried out, flailing wildly and slipping onto the floor. He stared down Nott while breathing heavily, hand clutching his shirt in a death grip. “Nott what the hell?”

“Caleb, you know I never leave the room on the weekends.” Nott looked down at him from her perch on her bed, a concerned look clouding over her face. “Are you ok?”

With a loud sigh, Caleb slumped over to lay spread out on the floor. “ _Nein_ ,” he grumbled. There was a soft thump off to his side. Frumpkin bumped his soft head against the side of Caleb’s face before he turned in a circle and curled up next to his head. Caleb absentmindedly reached up to scratch behind Frumpkin’s ear before he continued. “It was awful Nott.” He ran his free hand over his face. “His process is _atrocious_.”

“What are you talking about?”

Caleb shot back up into a sitting position. “I mean he barely even looked at the problems! He just glanced over their answers and gave them all full marks! I cannot send that to Professor de Rolo. I’m going to have to go and regrade it all. And, to top it off, once he had finished half-assing his work, he just kept… talking.”

“So to clarify,” Nott asked cautiously, “you’re upset because he kept talking to you?”

“Ja! I could barely concentrate on my work.”

“What was he saying to you? If he said anything to you that made you uncomfortable, I’ll RIP his throat out!” Nott jumped up to stand on her bed as she screeched out her threat. Caleb wasn’t even phased by her outburst. This was far from the first time she had offered to kill someone for him.

“Nott it’s ok. He just… asked me about myself. He wanted to know what my favorite book was and such.” Caleb flushed as he remembered the intensity of Molly’s focus when Caleb had stammered out the first book title that had come to his head. Some trashy smut book Nott had given him for his birthday as a joke that he had just finished reading the other night: it was far from his favorite, in fact it wasn’t even good, but in that moment he had completely forgotten the titles of every single book he had ever read. And the look on Molly’s face when he heard the title…

Nott stopped her angry rant and looked at him, her head titled to the side for a moment before her eyes widened in understanding. “Oh.”

“What?” Caleb looked at her suspiciously.

“Nothing, nothing!” Nott stammered. Her face hardened. “I just think that I need to have a talk with one Mollymauk Tealeaf.”

“Nott, no, I can handle this,” Caleb protested, holding out a hand to placate her. 

Nott flashed him a scrutinizing look for a moment. “I seriously doubt that. However,” she flopped back down into a sitting position on her bed. “I will defer to your judgement. For now.”

Caleb smiled. Leave it to Nott to always be looking out for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Exandria's equivalent of Saturday


	3. You're Never Too Old For Stickers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact, every time I see the German word for "what", my stupid brain always reads it as "was" even though I know it's pronounced "vas".
> 
> Also Molly may act like he's cool, but he's actually a huge dork and y'all can fight me on that.

The next few weekends carried on in a similar manner to the first. Thankfully Molly seemed to pick up on Caleb’s annoyance towards the quality of his grading that first day and started putting in more effort. That didn’t mean he was any less distracting though. However, as the weeks passed, Caleb found himself less and less annoyed by it. In fact, Caleb found himself looking forward to the afternoons he spent with Mollymauk. So when Professor de Rolo had asked them to grade a few recent quizzes, Caleb had quickly agreed.

If anyone asked, it was because he could use the extra money.

It had taken a while to figure out when they could meet up to accommodate the extra work, but they had settled on Yulisen1 evening after they both got out of class. Caleb quickly made his way across the central part of campus to the library, sighing in relief as he entered the warm building. The library was more crowded than usual now that the end of the semester was nearing. Luckily, their usual table was still open. As Caleb was setting the stack of quizzes down on the table, Molly arrived with the ever stoic Yasha in tow. 

“Oh um… _hallo_?” Caleb greeted them with a puzzled look on his face.

“Sorry, I had made plans with Yasha before someone decided to agree to grade a bunch of extra work.” Molly answered the unspoken question as he flopped down into his chair. “So she decided to tag along so we can go tear up the town once we’re finished here.”

Yasha crossed her arms. “Your plans were to purchase a box of cheap wine and then get drunk and cry over that movie where the boat sinks for the twentieth time.”

“He gave up his spot to save her!” Molly cried out indignantly. He quickly lowered his voice once more. “You know, some of us have a reputation to maintain around here. I would appreciate it if you didn’t just rat me out like that in public.” Yasha snorted. 

“Excuse me,” Caleb cut in. “Not that this is not fascinating, but I would prefer to not spend my entire evening here, so may we please get to work?”

“No problem, we can behave when we want to, isn’t that right Yasha? …Yash?” Molly turned his head back to where Yasha had been standing. 

She was gone. 

However, Molly seemed unfazed. “She uh, she does that sometimes. Probably saw Beau or something. Anyway! Let’s get started, shall we?” Molly pulled a package out of his bag and ripped it open with his teeth before dumping the contents out on the table.

“Are those… stickers?”

Molly grinned. “Damn right they are.” 

“Why?”

“We’ve never graded quizzes before; I got excited.” Molly shrugged. “So sue me.”

“We cannot grade these quizzes with stickers.” Caleb said flatly. “Last I checked, we are grading for university students, not kindergarteners.”

Molly leaned forward and looked Caleb in the eye with a very serious expression on his face. “Trust me. You’re never too old for stickers.” 

Caleb found himself at a loss for words when faced with the burning intensity of Molly’s red eyes. It quickly became apparent that Molly wasn’t going to look away first, and so Caleb coughed lightly and ducked his head down to divide the stack of papers in half. For once he was grateful his hair was so long. That way Mollymauk couldn’t see how red his burning ears had turned. 

“If you want to use the stickers, then I will not stop you,” Caleb finally relented as he handed Molly one of the stacks of paper. “However,” his eyes flickered up for a moment, “if he asks, you are going to be the one to explain it to Professor de Rolo.” Molly’s expression was so genuinely excited that Caleb found his stern look quickly melting into a fond smile. 

The two worked in companionable silence for the next hour. In fact, Caleb was so focused on his work that he almost completely forgot about Mollymauk’s presence. That is, he did until the feeling of something being stuck to his cheek broke his concentration. He shot the most unimpressed look he could muster at Molly.

“What did you put on my face?”

Molly tried, and miserably failed, to hide a shit-eating grin. “It’s a unicorn.” Caleb raised an eyebrow. “You just looked so serious there, grading away.”

Somehow, Caleb’s eyebrow rose even higher. “That was a terrible excuse and you know it.”

“Well, they can’t all be winners.” Molly shrugged. 

By the time they finished grading, Caleb’s face had no less than four stickers stuck to it. As they began to pack up their things, Caleb carefully peeled each sticker off of his face, wincing when one tugged on a few hairs of his beard. 

“Aww Caleb, you’re ruining my masterpiece,” Molly whined. 

Caleb rolled his eyes. “I promised Nott I would meet her for dinner and I am not going to the dining hall covered in stickers.”

“Right, yes, that makes sense.” Caleb wasn’t sure, but Molly seemed to deflate a bit. “Well, you two have fun,” he said as he shoved his things back into his bag. “I’m just going to…” Molly trailed off.

Oh. 

“Mollymauk, would you like to join Nott and me for dinner? Seeing as Yasha seems to have disappeared on you.” Caleb asked. 

Molly’s head snapped up to lock eyes with Caleb. He blinked a couple times before regaining his composure. “I wouldn’t want to impose,” he replied carefully.

“You would not be imposing,” Caleb reassured him, bracing himself against the table with both hands. Internally, Caleb was starting to panic. Had he misread the situation? Mollymauk probably wanted nothing to do with him and was trying to let him down easy. “However, you do not have to come if you don’t want to.”

“No, no I want to come!” Molly backpedaled, reaching out and grabbing onto Caleb’s hand. The two stared at each other with wide eyes for a few moments before Molly coughed lightly, breaking eye contact and pulling away his hand. “Well what are we waiting for, we don’t want to keep Nott waiting.”

~~~

By the time they arrived at the dining hall the dinner rush had mostly subsided. Caleb winced. He hoped they hadn’t kept Nott waiting for too long. 

“There you are!” Nott cried as she ran up to them. “I was about to eat without you, what took you so long?”

Caleb sighed. “We would have been done sooner if _someone_ ,” —he turned to glare at Molly— “had concentrated on grading instead of trying to find out how many stickers he could fit on my face.”

“Oh hush,” Molly replied with a wink. He reached out and pinched Caleb’s cheek lightly. “You know you love it.” Caleb blushed lightly and refused to meet Molly’s gaze, instead choosing to focus on Nott.

Nott looked over at Molly with a start, as if she had somehow missed the ostentatious tiefling standing next to him. She narrowed her eyes and Molly quickly let go of Caleb’s cheek.

“Nott…” Caleb warned. “I invited him along after his friend ditched him. Be nice.”

Nott glared at Molly for a few moments more before she relented with a sigh. “Fine,” she said sourly.

Due to the late hour, they were able to purchase their food and find a table relatively quickly. Nott had decided to forgo her usual enthusiastic recounting of her day in favor of staring Molly down, eyes never leaving his face. To his credit, Molly was trying his best to ignore the blatant hostility directed his way, but Caleb was positive that this was the most awkward silence he had ever been a part of. Which was quite a feat, considering the sheer number of awkward silences he had been a part of in his life.

Nott’s stare-down lasted another ten minutes before Caleb couldn’t take it anymore. “So Nott,” Caleb began. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Molly start violently. “What did you do today?” He looked at Nott with pleading eyes. He liked Mollymauk and he didn’t want Nott to scare him off just when Caleb was starting to think of him as a friend.

Thankfully Nott was terrible at denying Caleb, so she launched herself into her usual spirited recollection of the day’s events while shoveling food into her mouth. It started out mundane enough, but as it usually did for Nott, it quickly escalated. She was just finishing up telling them about how she had almost gotten caught stealing beakers from the science lab for one of her experiments when Molly interrupted. 

“Nott.” He stared at her with his lip curled back in disgust. “You do know the food is supposed to stay in your mouth, correct?” he asked, gesturing between her and the plate of food in front of her with his fork.

Nott, however, seemed unfazed. “So?” she asked through another mouthful of food, shrugging her shoulders. “What’s it to you?”

Molly scrunched up his face, held up a finger, and opened his mouth for a second before closing it again. “That’s fair,” he relented, with a nod of his head that sent his jewelry tinkling. Nott’s responding smile was almost imperceptible, just the slightest quirk of her lip, but it filled Caleb with a sense of relief. He had no idea why Nott had been so hostile towards Mollymauk but maybe there was hope that they might get along one day. 

“…Caleb?” Caleb was jolted out his thoughts by a purple hand waving in front of his face. “Exandria to Caleb,” Molly continued with grin, red eyes crinkling in amusement. 

“Eh, _was_?” Caleb blinked rapidly, refocusing on Molly. 

Molly chuckled. “I was asking if you had plans tomorrow night.” Caleb stared blankly at him. Why did he want to know that? “My friends and I are having a little get-together at Yasha’s place,” Molly continued. “I was wondering if you and Nott would like to come? It’ll just be a few of us, and there’ll be plenty of alcohol.”

Nott’s entire expression brightened at the mention of booze. She looked at Caleb with wide, hopeful eyes. Molly’s own expression was nearly identical to Nott’s, practically pleading Caleb to accept.

“I…” Caleb nervously looked back and forth between Molly and Nott. It was one thing to spend an evening with the two of them; he actually knew Nott and Mollymauk. However, Caleb didn’t know Molly’s friends. But he didn’t want to disappoint Nott. She was clearly excited at the prospect of free alcohol, and he knew she wouldn’t go without him. He took a deep breath as he came to a decision. “No, Nott and I do not have any plans.” he said slowly.

Molly’s reaction was instantaneous. His entire face lit up, his smile seeming to take up half of his face, and he clapped his hands together in excitement. “Oh Caleb, I could kiss you right now!” Caleb blushed so deeply that he could feel his ears burning, but Molly seemed to be too excited to notice. “This is great! You guys can come over to my place around six and then you can walk to Yasha’s with Fjord and me.” Caleb just nodded dumbly as the full reality of what he had just agreed to began to sink in. 

He was going to spend an entire evening at a complete stranger’s house. 

Oh _sheiße…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Friday


	4. Is Your Father a Thief?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oof, that was a much longer break between updates than I was hoping for... Well this is one of the longer chapters, and also one of my favorites, if that makes up for it.

Chapter 4

By the time Da'leysen1 evening rolled around, Caleb was a nervous wreck. 

“This was a bad idea,” Caleb said as he paced the room, running his hands through his hair and occasionally pausing to tug on the strands tangled in his fingers. “I’m not going to know anyone there and I’m going to make a fool of myself.” He stopped pacing for a moment. There was no way he was going to be able to go through with this.

“That’s not true,” Nott said gently, interrupting his thoughts. “You know me and you know Molly.”

Mollymauk. He had been so excited when Caleb had agreed to attend… And he was going to be so disappointed when Caleb failed to show up. Caleb sat down heavily on his bed, suddenly feeling light-headed. 

“Hey,” Nott came up to him and placed a comforting hand on his knee. “We don’t have to go if you don’t want to.”

He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths. Once his heart had slowed to a more reasonable pace, he opened his eyes once more to look at Nott. “No, you’ve been looking forward to this. I can do this.”

Nott looked unconvinced. 

“I can do this,” Caleb repeated, looking her in the eye as he pushed himself up off the bed. He paused when his legs wobbled and threatened to give out, but after a moment he steadied. “Now let’s go before I change my mind about all this.” Caleb said as he strode out the door.

Caleb and Nott made it to Molly’s building in record time. Despite Nott’s pleas for him to slow down, Caleb knew the faster he made it to Mollymauk, the less time he had to chicken out and turn back. The pair had just entered the building when they spotted Molly and Fjord walking towards them from down the hall. Molly looked uncharacteristically dour, his hand shoved deep into the pockets of his brightly colored coat and a frown darkening his face. 

“I could’ve told you that he wasn’t gonna show, Molls,” Caleb heard Fjord say as they got closer. Molly huffed in annoyance, grumbling something back that was too quiet for Caleb to hear. His eyes flickered towards the door and Molly stopped dead in his tracks when he caught sight of Caleb and Nott standing in the doorway.

“Caleb!” Molly exclaimed, his entire face lighting up. He jogged across the hallway and skid to a stop in front of them. “You made it! Fjord didn’t think you guys were coming.”

“ _Ja_ , sorry, lost track of time,” Caleb lied smoothly. 

“Well you got here eventually and that’s the important thing,” Molly replied cheerfully, threading his arm through Caleb’s and pulling him towards the door. “Now let’s get going before Beau drinks all the good shit.” 

~~~

“Molly… Why do you always insist on wearing that thing? It’s fucking hideous.” Beau eyed Molly’s coat with a look of disgust as she leant against the doorframe of Yasha’s room. 

“I know, isn’t it great?” Molly beamed as he spun in a circle, sending his coattails flaring. “I saw it and the colors hurt my brain… I had to have it.”

Beau shook her head but stepped aside to let the group in. Molly made a beeline past her towards Yasha, who was standing next to her alcohol-laden desk and pouring herself a drink. Nott dashed in after him. Caleb slowly walked into the room after Fjord, hunching in on himself when Beau looked at him in confusion. 

“Caleb? What are you doing here?” she asked.

“Mollymauk, he, um, invited Nott and me,” he explained, doing his best to ignore the voice in his head yelling that he didn’t belong here. When Beau shrugged, Caleb followed Nott across the room. 

If he was going to survive the evening, he was going to need alcohol. 

After Caleb had secured himself a drink and downed it, the tight ball of mounting anxiety began to loosen in his chest. After refilling his cup, he made his way over to the couch in the far corner of the room and sat down. He just needed to make it a couple hours before he could reasonably excuse himself and head home. He could make it that long.

He really should’ve brought a book.

One hour and about half of a drink later, Caleb was officially bored out of his mind. One could only keep themselves occupied on a couch by themselves for so long. It had been over an hour now, maybe he could convince Nott to head home. He spared a quick glance over in her direction and sighed. She appeared to be in the middle of some sort of drinking game, so she wasn’t going to want to leave any time soon. Caleb knew that while he technically could leave any time he wanted, there was no way he was going to leave Nott to walk home by herself. Not when she was that drunk. Guess he’d just have to wait a bit longer.

“Caaaaaaaleb!” Caleb flinched when Mollymauk suddenly appeared and draped himself across his lap. It was only by sheer luck that Caleb managed to maneuver his drink out of the way in time to avoid spilling it. Molly, however, seemed unbothered by the near miss. “There you are!” 

Caleb looked down at the tiefling with a raised eyebrow. “I’ve been here on this couch the entire time. It’s not like I was hard to find.”

Molly waved a hand dismissively as he wiggled his way into a more comfortable position: stretched across the couch with his head resting on Caleb’s lap. “I was a bit preoccupied, Jester wanted to talk to me about something. But, I’m here now!” He finished, smiling up at him. 

Caleb heard a soft snort from across the room. Looking up, he saw Yasha looking intently at her drink, a small smile on her face. “How much has he had to drink?” Caleb directed towards Yasha with narrowed eyes.

“Oh, Molly’s always like that,” Jester called out from across the room as Yasha’s smile widened slightly. “No matter how much he drinks.”

“Yeah, we’re not even sure he can get drunk to be honest,” Beau chimed in.

Molly rolled his eyes. “I’m _right_ here you know.”

“And you’re a cuddly bastard, even when sober, this isn’t news dude,” Beau shot back. Instead of dignifying that with a response, Molly casually flipped her off before returning his attention to Caleb.

“Anyway, as I was going to say before we were so rudely interrupted,” Molly raised his voice and glared at Beau. Looking back, he continued. “I’m glad you could make it. Fjord thought you were going to back out. Said you wouldn’t know fun if someone smacked you in the face with it.”

“I know how to have fun,” Caleb replied indignantly, spine straightening. “In fact, I’m sure I know how to have fun better than Fjord does.” Why was it everyone thought he was so uptight? Sure he could be anxious around strangers, but he knew how to have fun. Nott could attest to that.

“Oh?” Molly replied, a sly grin sneaking its way across his face. Shit, that sort of look never led to anything good. “Hey Fjord,” he called out, sitting up and deftly avoiding Caleb’s attempts to cover his mouth with his hands. From across the room, Fjord looked up from his conversation with Jester. “Caleb here bets that he can outdrink you.”

“That is not what I said and you know it,” Caleb hissed under his breath.

“Oh really?” Fjord slowly looked Caleb up and down. “Somehow I doubt that.”

“That sounds like a challenge to me,” Molly said, gleefully looking back at Caleb. 

“Ja, it does,” Caleb replied, narrowed eyes never leaving Fjord’s face.

“Well then, Yasha,” Molly clapped his hands and rubbed them together. “You know what that means!” Yasha nodded, her expression as neutral as ever except for the obvious excitement shining in her eyes. She carefully cleared the snacks off the small table set up next to her desk and moved it to the middle of the room. Meanwhile Jester jumped into action, producing two cheap folding chairs from the gods only knew where and setting them up on either side of the table. Caleb watched them with a critical eye. That set up was much too practiced to be spur of the moment. 

Caleb was distracted from following that thought any further when Mollymauk grabbed him firmly by the shoulders and led him to the table. Fjord sat down in the other chair as Beau placed a full plastic cup in front of each of them. 

“Ok so the rules are simple, first to pass out or puke loses,” Beau said gruffly. “Got it?” She looked at Caleb with a raised eyebrow. Caleb nodded. “Good. Then let’s get started.”

Fjord looked at Caleb with a smirk before he picked up his cup and began drinking. With a start, Caleb fumbled to grab his drink, splashing a bit of beer on himself in his haste. By the time he set down his empty cup, Fjord was watching him with a smug look on his face. Shit. He was going to have to be quicker than that if he wanted to keep up. 

Beau set to work refilling the cups and this time Caleb was ready, grabbing it as soon as Beau set it down. He quickly drained his glass and this time it was Fjord’s turn to struggle to catch up. Caleb shot him a wry smile as he finished, slamming down his cup. Two could play at that game. Caleb heard Nott cheer from somewhere behind him.

For the third round, they were both ready, grabbing their respective glasses from Beau’s hands before she could even set them down. The two stared each other dead in the eyes as they drank. However, Caleb brought his glass down with a gasp mere seconds before Fjord did. Caleb blinked a couple times and took a few deep breaths to steady himself. The alcohol was starting to go to his head. This had been a bad idea.

The next round went by slower than the previous ones. The sheer amount of alcohol they had each consumed was starting to take its toll and Caleb could feel his stomach protesting as he struggled to down the entire glass. He finished a few seconds after Fjord this time. Caleb covered his mouth and burped, closing his eyes and taking a few deep breaths to settle the rebellion occurring in his gut. Yep, definitely a bad idea.

With a shake of his head, Caleb steeled himself for the next round. They were even slower this time, both struggling to drink the entire glass. Caleb somehow managed to finish his, weakly setting his empty cup down. He watched Fjord stop for a moment, his mouth still full of the last of his drink. He tried to swallow and Caleb saw Fjord’s eyes widen a moment before the rest of his mouthful came dribbling out of his mouth. 

“And we have a winner!!” Molly cried out, grabbing Caleb’s arm and lifting it in the air. The rest of the room burst into cheers and Nott flung her arms around Caleb’s middle, squeezing him tightly. And that was what proved to be his downfall.

“ _Entschuldigung 2_,” Caleb said weakly, covering his mouth as he wrenched himself out of Nott and Molly’s collective grasp and ran out the door. 

Thankfully, he made it to the bathroom down the hall before he puked his guts up. 

Caleb kneeled weakly on the bathroom floor, hunched over the toilet as he gasped for breath. He wiped his eyes dry with the back of his hand and sniffed. And _sheiße_ was that a mistake. The acidic smell of alcohol and bile was enough to send him into another fit of gagging. 

The toilet suddenly flushed, causing Caleb to start back violently. He looked up to find Mollymauk leaning against the nearby wall. Caleb groaned, letting his head hang low once more. This whole ordeal was embarrassing enough without an audience. And of course, the person he least wanted to see him right now had shown up. 

“How you doing there?” Molly asked, smiling lazily. He had yet to move from his spot against the wall, looking casually amused at the situation. However, Caleb’s gaze was drawn to the short, snapping movements of the tiefling’s pierced tail. His eyes narrowed. That probably meant something, but the alcohol he hadn’t managed to expel was making it hard to think. “Caleb?” His eyes snapped up to meet Mollymauk’s. He looked much more tense, and Caleb realized that a good thirty seconds had passed since Molly had asked his initial question.

“ _Ja, ja_ , I’m fine,” Caleb reassured him. Molly let out a sigh at his words, the tension immediately melting off of his shoulders.

“Well that’s good,” Molly replied, beaming down at him. “You know that was really quite impressive. Fjord’s tolerance isn’t as good as Yasha’s or mine but I’ve seen him beat Beau before.”

“ _Ja_ , well I’m glad you enjoyed yourself, because I will _not_ be doing that again,” Caleb said weakly.

Molly threw his head back and laughed, his entire body shaking with mirth. Caleb also cracked a small grin, which quickly grew into a full-blown smile until he was chuckling along with Mollymauk. There was something about him that just made Caleb feel more at ease. Or it could be the alcohol. That was also quite likely. 

It took a minute for Molly to calm back down. Once he finally had himself back under control, he clapped Caleb on the shoulder. “We should probably get back, before Jester starts spreading rumors.”

“Right,” Caleb nodded. “Nott is probably getting worried.” Bracing himself against the seat of the toilet, Caleb managed to push himself up off the floor and back onto his feet. However, he was unprepared for the head rush that accompanied the movement.

“Easy, easy.” In a flash, Molly had moved away from the wall to firmly grab Caleb by the biceps and hold him steady. Caleb’s hands reflexively moved to hold onto Mollymauk as well and he stared at him with wide eyes. At this distance, he had the chance to really study the tiefling’s face. Caleb hadn’t noticed before but he was definitely wearing some makeup, dark eyeliner making his bright red eyes stand out even more. He had never been this close to Molly before. It would be so easy for him to just lean in and… 

With a light cough, Molly took a step away from Caleb, causing the man to stumble forward slightly. He luckily managed to catch himself but his face was definitely rivaling his hair in color. What was he doing? Where had that thought come from? 

Molly cleared his throat, pulling Caleb’s attention back to reality. “We should… we should get back.”

“Right, _ja_ ,” Caleb nodded, refusing to look up. 

“Hey are you ok?” Molly tentatively placed a hand on Caleb’s shoulder and Caleb’s eyes snapped up to meet his. “If you aren’t feeling well I can go get Nott and we can take you home.”

“No, it’s fine,” Caleb replied with a dismissive wave of his hand. “I’m feeling much better now.”

Molly shrugged. “Well if you’re sure, who am I to say otherwise?”

The rest of the evening was a bit of a blur for Caleb. At one point Nott had challenged Yasha to some sort of competition, which had ended about as well for Nott as was to be expected. He also found that the added strangers were much more bearable now that he had a decent amount of alcohol in his system. A conversation with Jester soon turned into her cooing over Caleb’s vast collection of silly pictures of Frumpkin. Towards the end of the evening, he managed to sneak himself another drink, but Molly caught him about halfway through it.

“I think you’ve had enough for one night,” Molly said, deftly stealing the cup from Caleb’s grasp and replacing it with another. 

Caleb sniffed the contents before taking a tentative sip. Water. “‘m not that drunk,” he grumbled under his breath.

Molly raised an eyebrow. “Darling, you were just dancing with Jester. And there isn’t even any music.”

“She wanted to dance,” Caleb said sheepishly. “And apparently she’s a hard woman to say no to.”

Molly laughed, throwing an arm around Caleb’s shoulder. “I know exactly what you mean. She mastered the art of the puppy dog eyes at a young age.”

“Hey, Caleb,” Caleb looked up at the sound of the aforementioned person calling his name. Jester was currently seated on the couch with an unconscious Nott sprawled across her lap. “I think Nott passed out.” She slowly leaned over, reaching towards Yasha’s desk. She somehow managed to pull a permanent marker out of a cup on the desk without disturbing Nott, but Caleb wasn’t all that surprised. Nott was a heavy sleeper when she was drunk.

“Jester, do not draw on Nott’s face,” Caleb warned, pointing a finger at her menacingly. He turned his head back towards Molly, who was still draped over his shoulder and far closer to his face than Caleb remembered him being. “I should wake her up and take her home before Jester draws all over her,” he said apologetically. 

“Absolutely not,” Molly replied, shaking his head vehemently. “You are both far too drunk to walk home by yourselves. Yasha and I’ll take you home.” 

“ _Nein_ , we wouldn’t want to trouble you.” 

“Yash!” He yelled over his shoulder, tightening his grip on Caleb’s shoulder and completely ignoring his protests. Yasha looked up from her conversation with Beau with a raised eyebrow. “Grab your coat, we’re taking Caleb and Nott home!”

Yasha nodded and set down her drink on the nearby table. However, instead of grabbing a jacket, she simply stood up, scooped Nott up off of Jester’s lap, and strode over to the two of them. Caleb looked over Yasha’s light grey tank top and leggings. “Are you sure you don’t want a coat?” He asked. “It’s quite cold out.”

“I don’t get cold.” 

He… really did not know how to respond to that. So he settled for nodding. “Fair enough.”

The group made their way out of the building into the brisk night. The blast of cold air finally jolted Nott out of her nap, and they had to stop for a moment while Yasha struggled to not drop the flailing goblin. Once Nott had calmed down, Yasha set her back down and they all continued on their way. 

They walked in silence for several minutes before Mollymauk finally spoke up. “So…Caleb. You’re Zemnian, right?”

“ _Ja_.” Caleb replied dryly. “Was it the accent that gave it away?” Caleb managed to hold his composure for a moment, but Molly’s snort of laughter quickly brought a smile to his face and soon both of them had dissolved into a fit of giggles.

“So,” Molly continued, carefully wiping his eye with one hand. “So that day in the cafeteria, you called me an arschloch.” Caleb winced. His accent was terrible. “I’m assuming that means asshole?” Caleb nodded, face reddening as he remembered the event in question. However, Molly continued. “Do you only ever speak Zemnian when you’re swearing?”

“I do not only swear in Zemnian!” Caleb protested. He paused for a moment before visibly deflating. “I only mostly swear in Zemnian. I don’t know anyone else here who speaks the language.” It had been a while since he had had an actual conversation in Zemnian, and the realization made him feel a bit homesick. 

“Well then,” Molly stopped, planting both his hands on Caleb’s shoulders. “Lay it on me.”

“I… _was_?”

“You, you just looked so sad there, so, say something to me in Zemnian.” Molly had suddenly dropped his usual levity. There was an intensity to his gaze that Caleb had never seen before and he found that he had completely forgotten every single word not only in Common, but his mother tongue as well. So he ended up blurting out the first phrase that came to mind.

 _“Ist dein Vater ein Dieb?” 3_ Caleb paused for a moment, staring at Mollymauk intently. 

He blinked as a blush bloomed across his face. Really? A stupid pick up line? That’s the best he could come up with? 

Molly held his gaze, blinking a few times, and Caleb could’ve sworn a darker shade of purple bloomed across the tiefling’s cheeks. With no further response from Molly, Caleb decided to throw caution to the wind and continue. _“Weil er die Sterne vom Himmel gestohlen und sie dir in die Augen gesetzt hat.” 4_

Molly’s brows knit together. “Did you… Was that a pick up line? Did you just use a Zemnian pick up line on me?”

“I…no I…” Caleb stammered, taking a step back and blushing an even brighter red once more. 

“Hey, no need to get so embarrassed,” Molly smiled brightly and patted him on the cheek, all previous seriousness gone without a trace. “Really, it was adorable.” Before Caleb could blink, Molly leaned in and planted a quick kiss on Caleb’s forehead and flounced off. Caleb stood and watched him hurry to catch up with Yasha and Nott, who had somehow missed this entire exchange. Shaking his head, Caleb followed after Molly.

He spent the rest of the walk home trying to ignore the tingling sensation from where Molly’s lips had touched him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Saturday  
> 2\. Excuse me  
> 3\. Is your father a thief?  
> 4\. Because he stole the stars from the sky and put them in your eyes.
> 
> \---
> 
> Yes, I absolutely googled "Cheesy German Pick-up Lines" while writing this. Also if the translation is incorrect, don't hesitate to let me know because, while I've got some German blood, I do not actually speak the language beyond some basic phrases and swear words.


	5. Your Friends Are A Fate That Befell Me

Despite spending his entire Miresen1 wondering if someone could die from a hangover, Caleb somehow made it to the following Grissen2 morning. He was waiting for his first class to start, nose buried in the latest book on his reading list, when someone cleared their throat to his right. He peered up from his book. Sitting in the seat next to him, instead of the blond human man who usually occupied it, was Beauregard. 

“Um, can I help you?” Caleb asked, brows furrowed. Beau usually sat in the back corner of the room, while Caleb sat closer to the front. What had made her decide to change seats this far into the semester?

“Hey man,” Beau replied, ignoring his question as she pulled a notebook out of her bag. “Glad you could join us.”

“Why are you sitting there?”

Beau snorted. “Last I checked, its a free country.”

“I know but you don’t usually sit there, so why…”

“Excuse me,” Caleb was interrupted by the arrival of the seat’s usual occupant. He looked down at Beau with a scowl. “You’re sitting in my seat.” 

Beau made an exaggerated show of inspecting the desk, even going so far as to look underneath. “Yeah,” Beau straightened back up in her seat, “I don’t see your name anywhere on it, dude.”

“But…” he paused when Beau leant back in her seat, kicked her feet up onto the table, and flipped him off. “Real mature,” he continued, only for Beau to raise her other hand to flip him off with both hands. The blond sighed in frustration and stalked to the back of the room. 

Beau swung her feet off of the desk and turned her attention back to Caleb. “So, we’re supposed to be picking partners for the final group project today.”

Caleb groaned, burying his face in his hand. After the weekend he’d had, it had completely slipped his mind. He was not looking forward to ending up stuck with some random classmate who would undoubtedly leave him to do all the work.

“I know right,” Beau chuckled. “Anyway, I was wondering if you’d wanna be my partner.”

Caleb immediately straightened back up, staring unblinkingly at Beau for a few moments. Had he heard her correctly? No one had ever asked to be his partner in a group project before. 

When Caleb didn’t immediately answer, Beau’s shoulders began to slowly migrate up towards her ears. “You know if you don’t wanna be my partner, you can just say so,” she snapped. “Don’t need to stare at me like I grew a second head or something.”

“Oh,” Caleb snapped out of his musings. “No no no, that’s not… I wasn’t expecting that.” He smiled in a manner that he hoped was reassuring. “I would be glad to be your partner.”3

Beau let out a sigh of relief, her shoulders lowering back to a more natural position. “Fucking sweet.” She turned back to face the front of the classroom as their professor walked into the room, leaving the conversation at that.

~~~

If Caleb thought that his morning class was unusual, his day only got stranger from there. After his class with Beau, Caleb had sequestered himself in his usual corner of the library for his break, his nose once again buried in his book. Jester had it recommended during their conversation at the party. Some regency romance novel about a woman falling in love with a half-orc man. It was, of course, utter garbage. Strangely compelling garbage…

“Hey uh, Caleb?” 

Caleb looked up from his book, barely holding back the sigh of annoyance. He was right in the middle of a good part. Standing in front of him was Mollymauk’s roommate, Fjord, who was nervously fidgeting with the strap of his backpack. Wordlessly, Caleb raised an eyebrow.

“I was, uh, I was talking to Molly last night and he said you were pretty smart?”

Caleb blinked. “Oh, um… I guess?” he replied. Mollymauk thought he was smart? 

Fjord looked a bit confused, but he continued. “Anyway, I’ve really been struggling with my GE history class, and I was wondering if you could help me out?” 

“Well, I suppose I could,”4 Caleb replied as he sat up straighter in his chair and closed his book, making sure to mark his page with his index finger. 

Fjord’s entire expression brightened and the tension slid off of his shoulders. “That’s great. Could we maybe start now? I’ve got a quiz today on the Dwendalian-Xhorhasian War and I am lost as hell.”

This time Caleb was unable to stop himself from sighing. So much for getting some reading done. He spared a look into his book, making note of the page number before closing it again and slipping it into his bag. “ _Ja_ , I have some time. My class isn’t for another,” He trailed off as he quickly did the math in his head. “Thirty-five minutes.”

“Thank you so much.” With a smile, Fjord dropped down onto the open chair next to Caleb and began rifling through his bag. “So,” Fjord began as he pulled a notebook out. He flipped it open to reveal a haphazard mess of barely-legible notes. “We just finished talkin’ ‘bout the attack on the tower of Zadash, and I’m having some trouble keeping all these names straight.” Fjord sheepishly handed the notebook over to Caleb. Scrawled in the margin were a total of two whole names. 

Caleb looked up from the notebook with a raised eyebrow. “ _Ja_ , well for starters, it would probably help if you actually wrote down all of the names.”

“My professor is older than dirt and just as interesting,” Fjord grumbled defensively. “I swear I spaced out for less than a minute…”

“We’ve all had those professors,” Caleb replied with a shrug. “But for one thing,” he paused to point at a particularly messy section of notes. “While historians agree that the attack on Zadash certainly did not help the tensions between Xhorhas and the Dwendalian Empire, it isn’t the event that triggered the war. It was actually the fall of the Ashguard Garrison in the Brokenveil Bluffs that led to an official declaration.”

Fjord leaned forward, burying his face into his hands with a groan. “I’m screwed, aren’t I?”

“Not necessarily.” Caleb tried to hide his grimace. Unless a minor miracle occurred in the next half hour, Fjord was definitely screwed. 

They had a lot of work to do.

~~~

Caleb’s second class was thankfully uneventful. Today was shaping up to be a very strange day and he wasn’t sure he could take any more surprises. Making his way across campus, Caleb slid into the cafeteria behind a group of giggling girls. A shiver ran down his spine as the heat of the building washed over him. Unwinding his scarf from around his neck, Caleb paused momentarily at the sudden buzzing coming from his pocket. He pulled out his phone to find a new text from Nott.

_Sorry can’t make it to lunch need to cram for test_

As Caleb finished reading Nott’s message, another one popped up underneath it.

_You can respond to this message_

With a chuckle Caleb quickly typed out a reply.

_No problem. Viel Glück. 5_

He slipped his phone back into his pocket and set off in search of food. The cafeteria was always crowded around lunch time, and it took Caleb a while to find an empty table. Settling into his seat, he pulled out his book and flipped it open to where he had left off during his previous break. 

Maybe now he could actually get some reading done. 

Just as Caleb was about to take his first bite of his sandwich, someone set a tray down on the other side of his table. 

_Verdammt._

Was it too much to ask to be left alone to read his terrible smut in peace? Eyes narrowing, Caleb looked up to meet the newcomer’s gaze, ready to give them a piece of his mind, but he quickly reared back in shock when he saw who had joined him at the table. A pair of mismatched blue and violet eyes looked back at him impassively. Yasha. 

“Oh, um, _hallo?_ ” Caleb asked tentatively. He’d only been around Molly’s best friend a couple times and he’d barely spoken more than a couple sentences to her. What could she possibly want with him?

Instead of saying anything, Yasha just simply nodded at him before turning her attention to her lunch. She took a bite of her own sandwich, seemingly oblivious to Caleb’s struggle to process what had just happened. What was she doing here? Why was she sitting with him? Was this some sort of intimidation tactic? The only commonality they had was Mollymauk, maybe she was angry because he was taking up so much of Molly’s time.

After a few more minutes of silence, Yasha had yet to say a word and Caleb was still staring at her waiting for an answer to his unasked questions. He really should stop staring at her. Blinking rapidly, Caleb ducked his head down to stare at his sandwich instead. He was overreacting. She had yet to actually say anything to him, and she wasn’t being intimidating. Or at least, no more intimidating than usual. Closing his eyes, Caleb took a deep breath and slowly let it out. 

“Yasha!” 

Caleb flinched violently, eyes flying open as he jerked back. A loud thump followed. His gaze snapped up towards the source of the noise, an excited blue tiefling making a beeline towards them.

“And Caleb!” Jester skid to a stop in front of them. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you and, oh!” She stopped for a moment, bending to pick something up off the floor. “I think you dropped your book.” She straightened back up and held out the fallen item, only to quickly pull it back with a gasp when she caught sight of the cover. “You’re reading the book I recommended! What do you think? Who’s your favorite character? Isn’t Oskar just so dreamy?”

“Jester,” Yasha interrupted, her low voice barely above a whisper. However, it was enough to grab Jester’s attention.

“Oh, right!” She clapped her hands together. “So, Caleb, every so often my mama sends me care packages from home, usually snacks I can’t find here and my favorite beauty products. We usually make an evening of it, it’s a whole thing. Anyway, I just got one today so I was wondering if you and Nott would like to join us tonight?”

“Oh, I, um-” Caleb faltered. “I’m not sure that is really my sort of thing…”

“Oh…” All of the excitement immediately bled from her body, her smile replaced with a crestfallen frown. Shit. He hadn’t meant to upset her.

“But I would be willing to give it a try,” Caleb quickly continued. If her initial smile had been bright, the grin that took over her face now was downright blinding. 

“Great!” 

A song suddenly began to play from the pocket of Jester’s dress, some cheery pop tune that was all over the radio. She scrambled to pull her phone out and silenced it. “Sorry, I’ve gotta go, but I’ll have Molly text you the details!” With a wave, she spun around and hurried away before Caleb could respond. Yasha chuckled softly and returned to eating her lunch while Caleb’s mind spun. 

He had just made plans, on a weeknight no less. When had he become so popular?

~~~

“So let me get this straight,” Molly said, trying and completely failing to maintain his composure as the two of them made their way down the hall to Jester’s room that evening. “Yasha decided to spend her lunch with you, and you thought she was trying to threaten you?”

“She wasn’t saying anything!” Caleb protested. “For all I know, she could have been plotting my demise the entire time.” Instead of sympathizing, Mollymauk seemed to find Caleb’s protestations even funnier. His barely-restrained chuckles quickly turned into full-on laughter, until he was bent double and cackling.

“She’s, she’s just quiet in general,” Molly gasped out, bracing himself against Caleb’s shoulder as he struggled to catch his breath. It took Molly a few moments, but he finally managed to get himself back under control. Standing back up, he squeezed Caleb’s shoulder as he carefully wiped his eyes dry. “I can’t _wait_ to tell her about this.”

“You absolutely cannot tell her!” Caleb hissed, cheeks flushing. 

Molly waved him off. “No need to be so embarrassed, she’ll probably just feel bad about making you uncomfortable.” A soft smile crept its way across his face. “I know it can be difficult to tell, but she actually really likes you. I think she’s glad to have finally made a friend who’s not as much of a handful as the rest of us are.”

A door a few feet down the hall suddenly flew open, and Caleb took a step back away from Molly as they both flinched. 

“There you guys are!” Peeking out of the doorway was Jester, her chin-length blue hair pulled back into two small pigtails, bangs pinned up and out of her face. “I thought I heard your laughter, Molly.” Her eyebrows furrowed as she looked them both over. “Wait, where’s Nott?”

“Oh, she had to stay in tonight,” Caleb replied, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. “Term paper.”

“Awww…” Jester pouted for a moment. “Ok, but you tell her that this means she _definitely_ has to come next time.” With a chuckle, Caleb nodded. A smile spread across Jester’s face as she rushed out of her room, looping her arm through Caleb’s and dragging him inside. “Hey you guys, Molly and Caleb are here!” She called out as they entered the room. 

Jester’s room was a lot to take in. One half of the room was plastered with brightly colored posters of various cute animals, as well as a large poster of what Caleb recognized to be the cover of the book she had recommended to him. There was also a sizable collage hanging on the wall, full of various pictures of Jester with a red tiefling woman, a ferret, and a large dog. His gaze initially flew right past the bed in the corner, covered in a fluffy duvet of various shades of bright pink, blue, and green and a mountain of pillows. The other half of the room was much more tastefully decorated. All of the wall hangings and bedclothes were complementary shades of blue, and a row of trophies neatly lined a shelf. The only thing indicating that someone lived there was the unmade bed with a pile of dirty laundry on it. While it was aesthetically pleasing, overall it felt deeply impersonal.

Beau and Yasha were both on the floor, Yasha sitting with her back against Jester’s bed while Beau lay sprawled out. 

“Where is Fjord?” Caleb asked, scanning the room. Yep, no sign of the half-orc man. 

“Oh Fjord doesn’t come to these anymore,” Jester replied, grinning mischievously. “One time he ate a bar of my fancy soap, and now he refuses to come.”

Molly slid up next to Caleb, throwing an arm over his shoulder. “What Jester has failed to mention is she was the one who placed the soap there, knowing that he never actually looks at what he’s snacking on.” Instead of answering, Jester just shot Caleb a wink before sashaying her way over to the large box set up on her desk. 

Caleb made a mental note to check any snacks before he ate them.

Jester picked up the box and unceremoniously dumped the contents onto the floor. Keeling down next to the pile, Jester set aside a couple bags of candy and tossed a packet of something to Yasha, who caught it without even looking up from her conversation with Beau. “Mama sent a few of those face masks from Nicodranas you like so much Yasha!” She then looked up at Caleb, patting the empty patch of carpet next to her. 

Molly briefly tightened his grip on Caleb before releasing him and making his way over to Yasha, leaving Caleb feeling strangely bereft. Mollymauk gracefully sunk down to the floor and began looking through the pile, leaving Caleb to carefully cross the room to where Jester was getting situated. Still kneeling, she turned to face Caleb fully as he sat down cross-legged next to her. 

“So what would you like?” She asked, looking at him expectantly.

Caleb blinked. He was so far out of his element right now it was ridiculous. “I, uh, I don’t know. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

Jester’s eyes immediately lit up. Cooing with excitement, she grabbed Caleb by the chin and tilted his head around before squishing his cheeks between both of her hands. Her brow furrowed as she ran her hands over his face. “You know Caleb, your skin is very dry… Do you even do anything to it?”

“Sometimes I just rub some dirt on my face,” Caleb replied sarcastically. 

Jester snorted, and, out of the corner of his eye, Caleb saw Molly throw his head back as he joined in the laughter. “You know Molly,” Jester said, looking in the tiefling’s direction without letting go of Caleb’s face, “I like Caleb a lot better than your last boyfriend. He’s actually pretty funny.”

The atmosphere in the room changed immediately. Caleb choked on his own spit for a moment, pulling back away from Jester as he coughed violently. Meanwhile, all the levity had fled from Molly’s face. “Jester, Caleb isn’t- Caleb isn’t my boyfriend,” he said with a carefully neutral expression on his face.

“He isn’t?” Jester asked, cocking her head to the side. “Then how come-”

“Jester!” Molly interrupted her. He spat out a few words in some harsh-sounding language that Caleb assumed was Infernal. Jester’s eyes widened comically at his words. 

“I’m so sorry,” she sputtered out quickly, looking back and forth between Caleb and Molly. “I didn’t… you know what, let’s just forget I said anything.” Molly nodded and turned his attention back to the items he had pulled for himself, picking up a bag of candy and ripping it open with his teeth. Caleb watched him out of the corner of his eye, not bothering to listen to Jester’s explanation of what she planned to do to him. 

Mollymauk seemed to be laser-focused on the items before him. However, he still had a frown on his face, brows furrowed in a way that wasn’t indicative of concentration, and his tail was twitching back and forth at his side. His head tilted up slightly and Caleb quickly shifted his gaze back to Jester, trying to focus on what she was saying.

His brain, however, had other ideas.

Why had Mollymauk sounded so upset by the idea of him being his boyfriend? Sure, he may be a bit socially awkward, but he wasn’t that off-putting, was he? Caleb blinked. Why did he even care? Mollymauk was his friend. His friend that he probably stared at too much and who made him somehow feel nervous and comfortable at the same time. Whose increasingly frequent hugs and other forms of affection he had come to crave- oh. 

_Oh._

Caleb’s eyes flicked over towards Molly as everything clicked into place. He had temporarily abandoned his candy to help Yasha secure her hair away from her face and this time, Caleb didn’t even try to deny the warmth that bloomed in his chest. 

He was in love with Mollymauk Tealeaf.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Sunday  
> 2\. Monday  
> 3\. Caleb would go on to regret this.  
> 4\. Caleb would go on to immediately regret this.  
> 5\. Good luck.


	6. A Coward, As Always

By the time the weekend rolled around, Caleb was a nervous wreck. He hadn’t actually spoken to Molly since that evening at Jester’s. How was he supposed to face him for their regularly scheduled grading time? There was no way he could spend an entire afternoon with Mollymauk without the tiefling seeing right through him.

Thankfully, it seemed like luck was on his side. Caleb stopped in front of the main doors of the library to read the sign taped across them:

**Closed Due To Flooding**

Caleb sighed, the tension bleeding from his shoulders. If their usual work space was closed, he could just go home and do his own work. He wouldn’t have to face Mollymauk.

“Caleb!” Caleb winced as Molly’s voice rang out across the courtyard. He should have known, he was many things but lucky wasn’t one of them. Quickly masking his emotions, Caleb turned around just as Molly skid to a stop in front of him. “You ready to grade some papers?” As he moved to pull the door handle, he flashed Caleb a crooked grin, and Caleb was suddenly hyperaware of how fast his heart was beating.

The smile slid off his face when the door refused to budge.

“It’s locked,” Molly said flatly.

Caleb let out a snort of laughter and pointed at the sign on the door. 

“Oh.” Molly crossed his arms and glared at the door for a moment before turning his head. “So… Now what?”

Right. Caleb immediately sobered. “Well the other buildings are bound to be more crowded, considering how close we are to the end of the semester.” 

“We could always go work in my room,” Molly replied. His tone was casual, but he was rocking on his heels, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his coat as his tail flicked back and forth behind him.

Caleb carefully considered Molly’s offer. In light of his recent revelation, Caleb was nervous enough at the idea of being around Mollymauk in a crowded library. A more private setting was sure to lead to disaster. However, now that he was actually in Molly’s presence, he found that he didn’t actually want to go home like he had originally planned. He watched as Molly shoulders hunched the longer the silence dragged on. That wasn’t right. Mollymauk was a boisterous and excitable person, and seeing him look so unsure of himself seemed… Wrong. Caleb took a deep breath, decision made.

“ _Ja,_ that sounds good to me.” Molly immediately brightened and Caleb found himself smiling back. 

“Well then Mr. Caleb,” Molly held out his arm, grinning cheekily. “Shall we?” 

Caleb rolled his eyes but slid his arm through Molly’s. “Lead the way.”

It didn’t take the pair too long to make it to Molly’s building and up to his room. Molly refused to let go of Caleb’s arm until he had to in order to dig his keys out of his bag. 

Caleb tried not to read too much into it. 

“So it’s a bit of a mess,” Molly began, looking over his shoulder as he fished through the smallest pouch of his backpack. “But Fjord’s out all day so we’ll have some peace and quiet while we work.”

Caleb gulped. They were going to be alone? Had the two of them ever been well and truly alone together? With a triumphant cry, Molly pulled out his keys and effortlessly unlocked the door. 

Caleb had been in Molly’s room only once before, but he hadn’t really taken the time to look around then. If he had thought Jester’s room was chaotic, Molly’s put hers to shame. The walls of his half were covered in swaths of brightly-colored cloth and similarly colored clothing was strewn everywhere. Closing the door behind him, Molly paused to take a look at his desk. It was completely covered with random pieces of paper and bits of cloth. 

“We, ah… Let’s just use Fjord’s desk.”

Caleb looked over at the immaculate surface of the other desk and nodded. With a chuckle, Molly grabbed the chair in front of his desk and dragged it over to Fjord’s desk. 

As usual, they worked in silence for the next few hours, marked only by the sound of typing or a pen scratching against paper. 

“Hey Caleb?” Caleb hummed in acknowledgement but his eyes never left his screen. “What in the Nine Hells is that supposed to say?” Turning his head, he found that Molly had moved to look over his shoulder at the question he was currently grading. Caleb jerked back, unprepared for the sudden closeness, and the pen he was holding tumbled to the floor. “Oh shit, sorry!” Caleb paid Mollymauk no mind as he slid out of his chair to retrieve the fallen pen. However instead of grabbing onto it, his hand closed around the purple, tattooed hand that beat him to it. 

His breath caught in his throat. 

Caleb’s head snapped up to find Molly’s face only inches away, solid red eyes staring widely at him. Except, there was a slight brightness towards the center of his eye that he hadn’t seen before. With his free hand, Molly reached up to brush an errant lock of ginger hair out of Caleb face, tucking it behind his ear. His hand lingered against the side of Caleb’s face. Heart hammering in his chest, Caleb unconsciously wet his lips, and the brightness that he had determined were Molly’s pupils followed the movement. Slowly, Molly started to lean closer. This was happening, Mollymauk was going to kiss him. He hadn’t kissed anyone since- 

He couldn’t do this.

“I- I’m sorry.” Wrenching himself away, Caleb swiftly stood, grabbed his laptop and bag, and made a beeline for the door, leaving a stunned Molly still kneeling on the floor.

“Caleb, wait!” Caleb kept going, refusing to look back.

A coward, as always.

~~~

Caleb slammed the door to his room shut and leaned against it, breathing heavily. 

“You’re home early,” Nott remarked from her bed. “How did-”

“Mollymauk tried to kiss me.” Caleb blurted out. “And I panicked.”

“Did you run all the way back here?” Nott asked. Caleb nodded, and she tilted her head to the side. “Because you didn’t want to kiss him?”

Caleb shook his head vehemently. “ _Nein_ , I ran because I _did_ want to kiss him.”

“Caleb, that doesn’t make any sense.”

Caleb shoved himself off of the door and started pacing back and forth across the center of the room. “I’m no good with people,” he stated, running his hands through his hair. “And I care about Mollymauk very much. What if I mess this up? I haven’t been with anyone since…” He paused. “Since Astrid.”

“Caleb no,” Nott jumped up from her bed and wrapped her arms around him, stopping him in his tracks. “What happened between you and Astrid is not your fault,” she said firmly. When Caleb didn’t respond, she pulled back a bit to look up at him.

With a groan, Caleb sunk to the floor, laying down and pressing his hands against his eyes. He laid there for a few moments before someone knocked softly on the door. Caleb’s eyes flew open and he swore his heart stopped in his chest. 

“Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered under his breath. That was probably Mollymauk, come to demand an explanation. Nott looked down at him with wide eyes. Caleb shook his head vigorously before holding a finger to his lips.

There was a brief moment of silence before the person at the door knocked again. “Caleb? Nott?” A low, gravelly voice came from the other side of the door. Caleb released the breath he had been holding. It was just Caduceus. “I heard the door slam and I just wanna make sure everything’s all right,” Caduceus continued. 

Nott scampered over to the door and cracked it open. “Everything’s fine!” She said with a forced-looking smile on her face. “Caleb’s just having a crisis, you know, normal stuff.”

“Oh,” Caleb couldn’t see Caduceus’s face from his position but he could imagine his expression well enough, his normally serene face scrunched in concern. “Is there anything I can do to help?”

She looked back over her shoulder as Caleb shook his head vehemently. After a moment of hesitation, Nott turned back to Caduceus. She shrugged and opened the door wider. “I mean you’re welcome to try…”

Caduceus slowly entered the room, ducking his head as he crossed the threshold. He stopped for a minute when Frumpkin jumped down from Caleb’s bed to wind himself around the man’s ankles. “Well hello there,” he said happily, bending down to pet the cat.

“Uhhh, Caduceus?”

“Hm?” He looked up at Nott, still absentmindedly scratching Frumpkin behind the ears. 

“You were going to try helping Caleb?” 

He nodded. “Right, right, that.” He took a moment to sit down cross-legged on the floor next to Caleb, leaning back slightly to allow Frumpkin to climb onto his lap. “Oh, this is nice.” He smiled and looked back up at Caleb, absentmindedly stroking along Frumpkin’s back. “Now what seems to be the problem?”

Instead of answering, Caleb just started at Nott with wide eyes. Nott sighed and joined the two on the floor. “He’s having _relationship problems._ ” 

“Oh,” Caduceus looked taken aback. “I may not be the best person to talk to about this.”

“Well surely you’ve got something?” Nott asked desperately. “He likes a friend of his and it’s definitely reciprocated, because, let’s be honest, Caleb’s quite a catch, but he’s too scared to do anything about it.”

“Nott!” Caleb hissed, burying his face in his hands.

“What? It’s true. You literally just told me that after sprinting here from Molly’s.”

“Ahh,” Caduceus interrupted, nodding his head. “I think I see what’s going on here. You’re worrying about how it could go wrong.” He paused for a moment and Caleb nodded. “Well, what if it doesn’t?”

“That’s- that’s not very helpful,” Caleb muttered.

“I wasn’t finished. It seems to me like there is the potential for a lot of good things to happen if you decide to pursue something with this person. Is avoiding the potential for pain worth missing out on all the potential good?”

“But what we have now is good,” Caleb protested weakly. “I don’t want to lose him when I inevitably fuck everything up.”

“How do you know you’ll ‘fuck everything up’?”

“Because that’s just what I do!” Caleb cried out, pressing the palms of his hands against his eyes. “I fucked it up with Astrid, and I’ll fuck it up with Mollymauk.”

Nott began protesting loudly and Caleb snuck a peek at Caduceus. His expression was intense, but didn’t give Caleb any clues to his reaction. He carefully watched Caleb, eyes searching every inch of his face. Caleb had to actively fight the urge to curl up and hide under the scrutiny. After a moment, Caduceus’s face relaxed back to its usual calm expression. 

“Well, in the end, I guess you’re the only one who can make this decision.” He carefully picked up the cat sprawled across his lap and, ignoring his mewls of protest, set him down on top of Caleb’s chest. Thankfully, Frumpkin seemed to find this new arrangement agreeable. He turned around in a circle a couple times before flopping over on to his side, steadily kneading his paws into Caleb’s stomach and purring loudly. Caleb took a deep breath, already feeling the anxiety in his chest start to loosen as he ran a hand over the cat’s soft fur. _Gott,_ he had no idea what he would do without Frumpkin.

Caduceus waited a few moments for Caleb’s breathing to fully even out before he stood. “I should probably get going,” he said, brushing the fur off of his pant legs. “However, if I may say one more thing?” He waited for Caleb to nod his head slowly before he continued. “Your friend, Mollymauk? I’m sure he’s just as scared as you right now. And sure, there’s always a possibility that things won’t work out, but he seems willing to take that chance anyway.”

Caduceus paused once more before continuing.

“But you need to decide, are you?”


	7. Coward No More

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Holy crap, the final chapter... This is the first thing I've written to completion that's longer than a one shot, so it's been fun. I'd like to take a moment to thank everyone who's left kudos and commented, you all are so sweet and they always make my day.

As much as Caleb wanted to spend the rest of his weekend hiding in his room, he unfortunately had a scheduled meeting with Beau the next afternoon to work on their project. So, despite his fear of running into Molly and Nott’s reassurances that he could stay home, he made his way to the cafeteria, where he and Beau had decided to meet. It was late enough in the afternoon that there weren’t too many people there, but Caleb made sure to keep his head down as he made a beeline for the nearest table. His phone buzzed as he slid into his seat, and he pulled it out to find a message from Molly. 

_Im sorry._

Caleb winced and his phone went off again.

_Can we talk? Pls?_

Caleb closed his eyes and took a deep breath before he locked his phone once again. He couldn’t do this. Not yet at least. He still had too much shit to sort through before he could even begin to think about facing Molly. 

A large book slammed down on the table. Caleb flinched and fumbled to maintain his grip on his phone, but the device went clattering onto the table.

“Dude, what the fuck did you do?” Beau growled out, fingers clenched on top of the book.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Caleb stammered. He winced. Real convincing Widogast.

“To Molly,” Beau ground out, leaning over to get right up in Caleb’s face. “He spent the entire night last night moping around like a sad puppy. He kept checking his phone every five minutes and the only other thing he did yesterday was with you.”

Caleb’s face crumpled. Was Molly really that upset? Gods he was fucking everything up even when he was actively trying not to. 

“-And for some fucking reason, he really fucking cares for you, so we are going to Molly’s and you are gonna apologize for whatever stupid shit you did, even if I have to fucking drag you there.” Caleb had missed the beginning of Beau’s rant, but what h had heard was enough to make his blood run cold.

“No!” He cried out, scooting his chair back to put some space between them. “I can’t!” 

Beau took a small step forward to close the gap Caleb had created. “What the fuck do you mean you can’t?” 

“I mean I-I can’t-I-” Caleb dissolved into a wordless cry of frustration as his tongue turned to lead in his mouth. He tried to push his chair back again only to be stopped by the wall. He was trapped. Beau was going to drag him off to Molly who would angrily tell him he never wanted to see him again. 

Caleb launched himself out of the chair to sprint towards the door. However, there was a tugging sensation on the back of his coat and the world spun as he found himself falling back into the chair he had just vacated. 

Breathing heavily, Caleb looked up at Beau in shock. “ _Was?_ What just happened?”

“Dude what the fuck was that?” Beau asked, ignoring his questions. “Are you ok?” Her previous anger completely vanished as she watched him carefully, as if he was a frightened rabbit instead of a person.

Caleb sighed, slumping forward and burying his face in his hands. “ _Nein,_ ” he replied miserably, his voice muffled by his hands. 

He heard the sound of a chair scraping across the floor, and Caleb lowered his hands to find Beau had pulled a chair up in front of him and was straddling the back of it. “Do you, uh, do you wanna talk about it?” She asked gruffly, her arms crossed high across her chest as she resolutely stared at the square of floor directly next to his left foot.

“I’d really rather not,” he deadpanned.. 

With a loud sigh, all the tension left Beau’s body and she slumped forward in her seat. “Oh thank god.”

Caleb chuckled, sitting up a bit straighter and relaxing a bit. 

“I’m sorry,” Beau said, laughing humorlessly. “I’m crap at this whole comforting people thing.”

“No, no, this is good,” Caleb hurriedly replied. He laughed again, and this time he could feel the invisible weight on his chest lessen. Beau cracked a smile back at him. “It’s… it’s been a rough couple of days and I think I needed to laugh.”

Her expression immediately fell once more. “Listen, I don’t know what happened with you and Molly, but I’m sorry for yelling at you, man. I mean, whatever happened was probably Molly’s fault anyway. He means well, but he can be a bit of a jackass sometimes.”

“No, _nein_ , Mollymauk didn’t do anything wrong,” Caleb sighed, hanging his head. “I’m just, I’m no good in social situations, and so I panic, and I hide, and I run away, and I unintentionally hurt those I care about most.”

Caleb flinched when Beau’s hand landed on his shoulder. “Hey, listen, I know I said Molly’s kind of a jackass, but he’s a jackass with a big heart. And he’s pretty forgiving. I’m sure if you just tell him what you just told me, he’ll understand.”

He smiled, a tiny fragile thing. “ _Danke,_ I will keep that in mind.”

“Cool,” Beau replied. She cleared her throat and roughly clapped Caleb on the arm. He barely resisted the urge to flinch. Ouch. “Now then, now that we’re done with all the touchy-feely crap, we should probably get to work.”

~~~

By the time the weekend rolled back around, Caleb was back to being a mess. While Beau had said Molly would understand, actually gathering up the courage to contact him turned out to be easier said than done. And on top of that, Mollymauk had stopped trying to contact him after those first couple texts. Caleb found that was more upsetting than when he was begging for forgiveness. He must have finally realized how terrible Caleb was and given up on him. 

“Hey don’t you have…” Nott spoke up suddenly before quickly trailing off as she remembered the situation.

“I’m not going,” he replied from his bed, not bothering to look up from the book he had been pretending to read for the last few hours. 

“You know you can’t just keep avoiding him,” Nott said sternly. “At some point you’re going to have to talk to him.”

“ _Ja,_ I know,” Caleb replied sourly, sitting up and pulling his knees up to his chest. “I just, I just need to figure out what I’m going to say to him.” He snuck a glance over in Nott’s direction.

She stared him down as she pulled on one of her boots. “Well, you better figure it out soon.” 

“Where are you going?” Caleb asked, momentarily distracted from the previous conversation. It was the weekend, Nott never left their room on the weekends.

Nott froze halfway through putting on her other shoe. “No-nowhere?” Caleb raised an eyebrow. Was she blushing? Nott finished pulling her shoe on and shoved her hands into the pouch of her oversized hoodie. “I’m meeting a friend, a guy from my Chem class named Yeza.”

“Oh!” This was a new development. Nott didn’t have many friends, or any really beyond Caleb and probably Jester. “Then what are you still doing here?”

Nott paused. “Are you sure you’re going to be ok? I can cancel if you want me to.”

“No, no, I’ll be fine, I have Frumpkin,” Caleb waved her off as he patted the cat sprawled out on the bed next to him. Frumpkin let out an inquisitive mew. “Besides, you don’t have to worry about me all the time. Go, have fun.”

“Are you sure?” Nott still seemed a bit apprehensive. 

“Yes, I’m sure, in fact I think a little bit of solitude to think things over will do me some good.” That was a lie. Being left alone to think things over never ended well for Caleb. But he didn’t want to burden Nott and he did still have Frumpkin if he started to spiral again. 

Nott smiled. “Ok then, I’ll be back in a few hours.” She shouldered her bag and, with a small wave, slipped out the door. 

Caleb took a deep breath and leaned back against the head of his bed as he picked his book back up. Now to try to actually get some reading done. That always helped to keep him calm.

A few hours later a soft knock on the door pulled Caleb’s attention from his book. Caduceus had mentioned coming over this afternoon with tea. Taking note of what page he was on, Caleb set the book down on his desk, made his way over to the door, and slowly pulled it open. 

The person standing on the other side was definitely not Caduceus Clay. 

“M-Mollymauk,” Caleb stuttered out, tightening his grip on the door. “What are you doing here?” Caleb winced. What a stupid question. Obviously he was here to demand answers.

Molly looked like just as much of a mess as Caleb felt. It was as if all the color that normally radiated from his being had somehow been muted. Molly jumped slightly and stared at Caleb with wide eyes, his tail whipping back and forth as he fiddled with the strap of his bag. “I… I didn’t think you’d actually answer the door.” When Caleb didn’t say anything, he continued. “I am so sorry, I should’ve asked instead of just trying to… well you know, and Beau told me to back off, because you had some shit to work through and I tried, I really tried, Yasha actually had to drag me home a couple times because, _fuck_ , I missed you.” 

He paused for a second to inhale sharply. 

“And look I get it now, you don’t feel that way, but at the time I thought ‘Hey I’ve been a pining idiot for long enough I should just go for it’ but I guess I misjudged and I’m sorry. Can we just forget that ever happened and go back to being friends? Because as I said earlier, I really fucking miss having you around.”

He wasn’t mad? Caleb watched Molly for a moment, completely deaf to whatever it was he was saying. If he were to be totally honest with himself, he had also fiercely missed Molly’s company during the week. They were friends, and, if his social awkwardness wasn’t enough to drive him away, then maybe… maybe Caduceus was right. Maybe he wouldn’t completely fuck everything up beyond repair.

“I mean don’t get me wrong,” Molly continued, completely oblivious to Caleb’s epiphany. “Yasha’s like my best friend but-”

Molly’s rambling was cut short when Caleb grabbed him by the collar of his ridiculously colorful coat and crushed their lips together. The kiss was over almost as quickly as it had begun, a chaste press of lips that left Molly gaping at Caleb like a fish out of water. 

“You kissed me,” he said dumbly.

Caleb chuckled. “ _Ja, ja_ I did.”

“I thought…”

“No, I didn’t run away because I didn’t return your feelings,” Caleb replied, sobering slightly. He paused for a moment before continuing. “The last relationship I was in, it didn’t end well and I was scared. So really I should be the one apologizing to you. I shouldn’t have run off like that and I most definitely shouldn’t have avoided you for a week.”

“Eh, water under the bridge,” Molly scoffed, running his hands up Caleb’s arms to drape himself over his shoulders and smiling brightly for a moment. “In fact, I’ve already forgotten about it. But uh, you said you were scared. What changed your mind? Not that I’m complaining!” 

Caleb smiled fondly at him. “You did,” he said softly.

“Why Caleb, darling,” Molly cooed, placing a hand over his chest . “That might be the sweetest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”

Caleb rolled his eyes. “Just shut up and kiss me.”

“Now _that_ I can do,” Molly replied, grinning as he gently pushed Caleb back into his room.

~~~

“So you mean to tell me,” Professor de Rolo began, staring Caleb down over the rims of his large, circular glasses, “that, for the final assignment of the semester, you both just _forgot_ to grade it.”

Caleb squirmed in his seat, his gaze shifting rapidly between the professor and the floor.

“Absolutely!” Molly cut it, leaning over sideways in his chair into Professor de Rolo’s field of vision with a bright smile on his face. “You know how the end of the semester is, all those projects due. We’ve just been very busy. Lots to do, isn’t that right, darling?” Instead of answering, Caleb just blushed, pulling his scarf up higher around his neck. Grinning in a manner that could only be described as wickedly, Molly turned back to look at the white-haired man on the other side of the desk. “I can assure you, Caleb’s attention has been _completely_ dedicated to his studies lately.”

Caleb choked, dissolving into a fit of coughing. If he wasn’t blushing enough before, he certainly was now. 

“Oh dear, and I think he might be getting sick as well.” 

Professor de Rolo’s eyes narrowed, flitting back and forth between a still-coughing Caleb and a sweetly smiling Mollymauk. After a moment though, his expression softened. “Yes, well I suppose it is a rather busy time of year,” he said. “Just get it to me by the end of the day and it should be fine.”

“Don’t worry sir, we will,” Molly reassured him, standing up and throwing his coat over his shoulders with a flourish. Caleb, having finally recovered from his choking fit, stood as well, rolling his eyes at Molly’s antics. Seemingly satisfied, Professor de Rolo nodded once before returning his attention to the pile of papers on his desk.

“Oh, and Caleb?” Caleb paused halfway out the door and turned back to look at his professor. “For future reference,” Professor de Rolo continued, not looking up from his work, “the scarf does not go that high up your neck.” Still looking down, he tapped a spot on the left side of his neck, just under his jaw.

Caleb blanched, left hand flying up to his neck before he could stop himself. Behind him, he heard Molly’s barely stifled snickering. Professor de Rolo finally spared him a look over the rims of his glasses with a knowing smirk. Stammering out a nonsensical reply as color flooded his face, Caleb turned on his heel and made a beeline out the door and down the hall.

“You are such an _arschloch,_ ” Caleb grumbled under his breath when Molly finally caught up to him.

“Oh _ja,_ absolutely,” Molly replied cheekily. He threw his arm around Caleb’s shoulders, pulling him closer and pressing a kiss to his cheek as they continued walking down the hall. “But you know you love it.”


End file.
